Trial, Bo Xilai | featured news

Former Mafia-busting police chief Wang Lijun faces 15 years behind bars after the second major criminal case in China's biggest political scandal in years concluded today. But the guilty verdict left the public and analysts guessing if the scandal's central figure, disgraced former leader Bo Xilai, will himself face trial.

Gu Kailai, the wife of ousted Communist Party official Bo Xilai, was found guilty and given a suspended death sentence on Monday for the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood, according to the Associated Press.

The one-day murder trial of Gu Kailai, the wife of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai, concluded with prosecutors telling the court that she slipped poison into a glass of water to kill British businessman Neil Heywood after he got drunk. Gu killed Heywood, they argued, because he threatened the security of her Harvard University son.

The son of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai says he is confident the "facts will speak for themselves" when his mother stands trial for murder Thursday in the country's most sensational political scandal in decades.

Friends and foes say Gu Kailai, the high-profile suspect in Neil Heywood's death in Chongqing, deserves an open trial that follows the rule of law. The country's most famous murder suspect may have laid bare divisions in Chinese society, but friends and foes alike are united in their demand that her trial be a test case for justice in a system notorious for secrecy and flouting of the rule of law.